Biasca, Switzerland - 15 April 2024

15.04 - Biasca

Tintin doesn’t really rate xcweather in Italy - but I still look each day. This is the reason we’re moving down South! Really didn’t sign up for snow - up on the mountains yes - but not where we’ve just been cycling!

Tintin drove again today - the black bits on co-pilot are the routes we can’t go. 

Think we spent more time in tunnels than out! The Gotthard tunnel is nearly 17km long and took about 15 minutes to drive through. 

There was a moho service station on the motorway, so off we went. A few days ago, reviews said there wasn’t any available water. If that had been the case we would have had to go to a campsite. We were in luck - Dave fully serviced again. 

We drove to a Park4nignt at Giornico - think we both thought, is this all there is! Found another place to try and moved on. 

As soon as we were in the canton of Ticino, all the road signs were in Italian instead of German. The whole place has a different feel. Things like the bins are over full - like we found in Italy last year - even though we’re still in Switzerland. Each canton to their own!

We parked up at a free site in Biasca and had a cup of tea whilst trying to decide what to do. Some little ninja came and moved a barrier close to us, a Google translate inferred the area was for parking for sports teams only - so we moved a little higher up to another park by the sports field. 

A few days ago, I had a really sore throat, and since have felt just a bit ‘meh’. Tintin thought it would be a good idea to go for a walk - little did he know! 

We were out for 2-1/2 hours - but didn’t even get to 10,000 steps. At first it was all up hill, but on a road. We kept on seeing and hearing a helicopter - seems like he was taking logs off from the mountains. We also saw a Red Arrows kind of tribute - Tintin has googled and come up with Swiss Air Force PC-7 team? Flying in sort of formation. 

It was a really hot and humid walk. There were quite a few streams running off the mountains to cool our hands. 

We decided to take a path back to Biasca, which should have taken 35 minutes - ha!

It was really quite surreal - Sarah & Herc called from the Philippines - and we had a chat whilst high up who knows where!

We couldn’t really enjoy the scenery unless we stopped, as it wasn’t really like a path, more of a scramble in places. 

Anyway - we certainly went up quite high! On the way down, whilst Tintin was deciding the shortest route back through the town, I went to have a look at the church San Pietro. I had to use a hand sanitizer and bowl to wedge the heavy door open, as I feared I wouldn’t get out of the heavy door again! Big surprise - lots of frescoes on the walls. We queued and paid good money to see those in Italy!

Took about another 30 minutes to walk back to Dave - up hill. We were both very hot and out of breath and enjoyed a pint of fizzy water and fresh lemon! 

Had chilli for tea, and then it was time to make granola again. It’s the one thing we carry on eating when away - Greek yogurt, some collagen powder, ground linseeds, hemp seeds, blueberries, peaches, grapes topped off with homemade granola. My granola is just cooling before I add the necessary chopped up chocolate!

An alright day, and at least it wasn’t cold and wet. Think tomorrow we’ll be heading for more well known locations!